National

Government Forms Task Force on Foreign Workers in Indonesia
Wednesday, 04 August, 2004 | 00:11 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:The Indonesian government is to conduct a search on the completeness of foreign workers’ legal documents in Indonesia.

To carry this out, the government, backed by a Presidential Decision, will form a task force that will be assigned to check the legal documents of foreign workers in Indonesia and the repatriation of illegal Indonesian workers from Malaysia.

Ad interim Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Malik Fadjar said that this decision was taken in a cabinet meeting held by President Megawati Soekarnoputri on Monday (02/08) at the State Palace, Jakarta.

“The draft of the presidential decision is still being discussed by the State Secretariat,” Fadjar said.

Based on information received from State Intelligence Board (BIN) head AM Hendropriyono, Fadjar said, many foreign workers have resided in Cisarua, West Java and Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara without proper documents.

Fadjar denied that this plan of document inspection was related to efforts to prevent acts of terrorism and securing the second round of the presidential election.

According to Fadjar, the document inspection will be carried out all over Indonesia.

“Do not consider this as a raid on foreign workers in Indonesia,” said Fadjar.

Regarding the repatriation of Indonesian illegal workers from Malaysia, the Indonesian government still has to conduct further talks with the Malaysian government as regards the repatriation mechanism.

Starting from September 20, 2004, that is after the second round of the presidential election, the Indonesian government will arrange for these workers to be sent home in cooperation with Malaysian and local governments.

The government will allocate special funds, taken from budget emergency funds, to send the workers home.

Fadjar said that the Malaysian government would possibly provide some funds to finance the workers’ repatriation efforts.

Fadjar predicted that between 600,000 and 700,000 illegal workers might be repatriated back to Indonesia. (Sapto Pradityo - Tempo News Room)